There's no bigger dread for patients than seeing a long line in the waiting room especially when they're feeling bad. Long queues can oftentimes be the deciding factor on whether your patient chooses to use your services or search elsewhere. QLess understands the many downsides that come with long patient waiting times, so we decided to take action. Our team of experts has come together with a solution that can help you with how to reduce patient waiting time.
QLess has worked with several healthcare partners including hospitals, clinics, and private practices to deliver the world's first mobile queuing platform. Our solution, called FlexAppointments, combines a queue management system with analytics, mobile CRM, and marketing into one platform to revolutionize the way you make appointments. QLess FlexAppointments replaces the old methods in which patients waited in line, with dynamic virtual queues that allow patients to choose what time is best so they can avoid waiting in line.
Long Queues and How To Reduce Patient Waiting Time
If you run an operation in which individuals rely on your services, then you understand how important customer experience is, by allowing patients to choose their own appointment date and time, they can walk into your waiting room without having to wait in a line. Patients are sent SMS reminders and are also able to determine when reminders are sent, which reduces no-shows, while the traditional approach to figuring how to reduce patient waiting time would be to hire more staff, our method provides a cost-effective alternative. Rather than hiring more personnel just to handle the peak times of patients, why not help patients choose the times that are less busy. In the case of an emergency, the patient can provide a little extra information to your staff ahead of time. FlexAppointments allows your patients to make appointments, giving them the opportunity to skip waiting lines or come when patient queues are the shortest. It's a win-win for both you and your patients.
How QLESS is Used to Reduce Patient Waiting Time
You may be an urgent care provider who's looking to minimize patient queues in the waiting room or a clinic that would like to more efficiently manage its queues and reduce waiting time. There are several instances in which QLess aims to replace physical lines and waiting rooms with virtual, mobile lines. We take a closer look at a few industries to see how to reduce patient waiting time using FlexAppoinments.
QLess turns physical waiting lines into virtual queues by allowing patients to schedule their own appointments on their phones and receive messages as their appointment approaches. QLess sends text and email reminders to reduce no-shows. Our interactive appointment scheduling solution, FlexAppointments offers communication to connect your staff with patients. If on the day of an appointment, your patient is running late, they can request more time; likewise, if your appointments are running late that day, your staff can notify patients that the office is behind schedule.
The Benefits That Come from FlexAppointments
As a virtual queue solution, FlexAppointments greatly reduces patient queues. The solution also provides additional benefits that will both improve your patients' experience and the organization's bottom line.
- Providing Patients with More Flexibility - If an unexpected situation comes up and your patient is unable to make their scheduled appointment, he or she can use FlexAppointments to turn no-shows into later-shows. That patient can then move backward in line if they need more time to make it to your location.
- Fully Leveraging Your Resources - Filling the schedules of expensive resources such as your staff and medical equipment will have a direct impact on your bottom line. If you experience fluctuations throughout the day, week, or month, QLess offers analytics services that allow you to understand how to optimize resources to maximize productivity.
- Creating a Way for Patients to Opt-In - Patients can easily join a virtual queue via your website, their mobile phone with text or voice message, an on-site kiosk, or a tablet. Making it easy for patients to subscribe is a critical step in how to reduce patient waiting time.
- Prioritizing Your Time - Keeping patients informed on wait times will offer relief to both patients and doctors. If the doctor is running behind schedule, he or she will not need to waste time in the waiting room. Likewise, patients will not need to constantly ask your staff about the wait time or the patient queue.
- Improving Patient Satisfaction for Higher Reimbursements - By improving your patients' overall experience, you will receive higher satisfaction scores for higher reimbursements. Additionally, you will get a more accurate measure of patient satisfaction which you can then use to discover other areas for improved service.
- Using Analytics to Schedule Staff - With new developments in analytic technology, QLess is able to predict waiting times and this allows you to assess the best ways for how to reduce patient waiting time. By enhancing resource scheduling based on historical data and predictive analytics for patient traffic, you can enhance your staff's schedules to reflect your patients fluctuating demand.
- Boosting Your Staff's Morale - Staff members that are solely responsible for managing the waiting room will undergo a high turnover. Rather than keeping these staff members on 'waiting room duty,' you can boost their morale by letting them do the jobs they are meant to do.
- Freeing Your Patients Queues - You can be responsible for turning the same old mundane waiting room experience on its head. Not only will FlexAppointments give you the tools in analytics to figure out how to reduce patient waiting time, but you can also essentially eliminate the idea of a waiting room altogether. Give patients the opportunity to wait in the comfort of home before heading to the healthcare facility, and let them go about their daily lives.
Virtualizing your waiting room is the first step in figuring out how to reduce patient waiting time. The upfront investment needed to get FlexAppointments up and running is a fraction of the return you will be rewarded in the long run, if you are curious about the measurable outcomes and time it takes to make a return on FlexAppointments, QLess has developed an easy ROI calculator for you. It allows you to calculate tangible outcomes including an increase in productivity, when trying to figure out how to reduce patient waiting time, some of our customers have reported up to a 600% ROI when using QLess.
Customer Examples of Using FlexAppointments
QLess has worked with several customers to build their own virtual queues. Having worked with hospitals, clinics, and other healthcare providers, many of our customers have used FlexAppointments to not only learn how to reduce their patient waiting time, but better operate their business.
- The Virtual Queue -
- Allowing patients to realize they can wait from anywhere can be an eye-opener. Reducing patient waiting time is one way that doctors, clinicians, and doctors alike can focus on what matters: patients' health. The virtual queue allows patients to wait for medical care from the comfort of their own home while health care providers can efficiently work with their patients.
- Balance Patient Load Between Locations - If a healthcare organization has multiple locations, QLess can help balance an influx of patients between locations. Depending on patient queues, your patients can decide which clinic to go to. The QLess system is easy for staff members to use with a dashboard that displays each queue for each location. In addition, QLess can automatically shut down the queue as closing time approaches, eliminating the need for staff to stay late.
- Walk-In Appointments Become the Norm - In the case of a minor injury such as a sprain, a patient can join QLess's virtual queue by sending a text message. That way, the patient can choose to arrive at the clinic or an urgent care facility and be seen by a doctor within 5 minutes of arrival. The waiting room of a hospital or urgent care facility can be uncomfortable, which is why QLess tries to improve the experience for all parties.
How To Reduce Patient Waiting Time With FlexAppointments
The QLess solution is simple to implement and easy for your staff to manage. QLess is a hosted service that runs on our company's existing server infrastructure, no proprietary software is needed to get going and your customers won't need to download or install anything. All your customer needs to do is have access to a phone, computer, your company's kiosk, or tablet. Realizing how to reduce patient waiting time is the first step in your journey to transforming your customer experience and operations.
Explore everything you can get from QLess and gain more information about FlexAppointments.